School of Education, 3206 University Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa 50311

To Whom it May Concern: I am writing this letter in recommendation of Todd Polansky, an applicant for a teaching position in your school district. I first met Todd when he enrolled as a graduate student in my General Methods course at Drake University. Since that time, I have come to respect his abilities, both as a student and as a future teacher. Todd is an intelligent man who possesses many of the skills and characteristics of a natural born teacher. He is open-minded, respectful of others opinions, polite, hardworking, caring, and willing to give advice to those in need. These attributes have allowed him to succeed in my class, and I have no doubt that they will allow him to excel as a teacher in your district. It is his passion for his content-area and his ability to design engaging and rigorous curriculum; however, that separates Todd from his peers. As a student in my course, Todd was asked to create a unit of instruction using the Understanding By Design (UbD) framework of curriculum development. This approach to curriculum design emphasizes critical thinking, as well as performancebased assessmentand it encourages teachers to engage students in real-world problem solving. Todd embraced the UbD framework and created a unit on the form of the parable where students were asked to consider how literatureas a record of human experiencemight help us to better understand ourselves and our world. His unit was, by far, one of the best that I receivedwith respect to both its level of rigor and concern for authentic student learning. Please accept my highest recommendation of Todd Polansky. He will make a fine addition to your faculty. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me by email at todd.hodgkinson@drake.edu or by phone 515-271-4565. Sincerely,

Mr. Todd Hodgkinson Assistant Professor of Secondary Education Drake University